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AKB48 2012 Senbatsu Election First Day Results + Commentary

As AKB48 fans know, the 2012 Senbatsu election is in full force! The first day results just came out, and while these aren’t the final results (things are going to shift big time, like they always do) it’s interesting to get an idea of what’s changed in AKB and what’s stayed the same.

A couple of things to keep in mind:

1. This is only the first day, and a small percentage of the votes. Things will (hopefully) change.

2. Maeda Atsuko is not going to be in the election.

3. The election is set up differently; slots 1-16 are senbatsu, slots 17-32 are Undergirls, 33-48 are Next Girls and 49-64 are future girls. There also isn’t a distinction between media senbatsu (the most popular members) and regular senbatsu.

Here are the results (from Melos no Michi HERE). They will be compared with last year’s final results, found at Janakya Mottanai HERE because there’ve been some interesting shifts.

Sashihara Rino: while Sasshi only gained five places, when it’s that high up into #4 that’s a HUGE rise, especially when that means she beat out former #3 Shinoda Mariko, Takahashi Minami, Kojima Haruna, and Itano Tomomi. This is perhaps due to the influence of having a pretty successful solo single, Sore demo Suki da yo (which could show how Mayu has ascended to #3) and the fact that Sasshi loves idols, too.

Matsui Jurina: Last year it was looking as if Matsui Rena was going to come out ahead as being by far the most popular girl in SKE48. While that might still be the case, these preliminary results are making it seem like Jurina is moving up there.

Yokoyama Yui: Yui is one of the girls that management has been pushing, but really has gained favor with the fans. When she was a kenkyuusei member she was super popular with fans and none of the pushing has felt really false. That and her involvement with the subgroup Not Yet, Yui is doing very well!

Umeda Ayaka: This girl has been jumping up the rankings since her first showing. Last year she was center of the Undergirls single Dakishimecha Ikenai, and now she’s in the more restrictive senbatsu! At this point she’s the second most popular member of the unit DiVA and it’s looking like she keeps gaining fans.

SKE48: Once you get past the main senbatsu, a great deal of the new or rising members are in SKE48. While SKE48 had been doing well around the time of last year’s election, the popularity of their various singles including Pareo wa Emerald and Kataomoi Finally seem to have made their mark. So many members of the three teams and kenkyuusei are new to the ranking. In my opinion this shows that while AKB’s the big group in Japan, it’s sister groups are still quite popular.

NMB48 (especially Watanabe Miyuki): five members ranked from NMB48, and while that’s nowhere near how many members ranked from SKE48, the jump Yamamoto Sayaka made from middle of the undergirls to 18 is a pretty big jump. Watanabe Miyuki is also the highest ranked member who’s new to the ranking at 19. Again, this shows that NMB48’s popularity is rising, and also that the scandal that Miyuki was a part in didn’t hurt her too much; she’s less than 300 votes behind Sayaka, which is pretty impressive. Miyuki’s one of my top five idols of all time, too, so I’m personally quite pleased. But I think it’s reasonable to expect that next year even more NMB48 members will be ranking.

Today’s losers:

Oota Aika, Miyazaki Miho, Oya Shizuka, Maeda Ami and Ichikawa Miori: These are six girls who ranked fairly well in last year’s election; they were all in Undergirls, granted, but all above rank #40. Now Myao’s at the top of these girls with rank #49, and Oota Aika had the biggest drop of the girls still ranking, sliding down 27 points. None of these girls have had any major backlash, at least none that I’m aware of, so it really seems like they are falling because the new members are pushing them out (on a personal note, Oota Aika’s my AKB48 oshimen, so I’m a bit saddened).

Komori Mika, Sato Sumire, Matsui Sakiko: these are three girls that ranked in the Undergirls last year and now are simply not on the list; this means they fell from being above rank #40 to now being below rank #64. Of note is the fact that all of these girls are in major AKB48 teams; Komorin and Suuchan in Team B and Sakippe in Team K.

So overall, this ranking shows the new popularity for SKE48 and NMB48 and their fans voting in the AKB48 election, which ends up shifting members from AKB48 teams down. This doesn’t necessarily mean that these girls are less popular than in previous years; it simply suggests that these new girls have a newfound popularity from last year.

Like I mentioned earlier, these are really just the first 10% of votes so things could shift around and some members could fall off the list. However, this is an interesting start, and I’ll be interested to see how it turns out in the end!